Monday, December 29, 2008

It was a mighty host that gathered. Doltsneeze smiled as he looked at his host. On the right wing he had put the Elven Glade Guard, 15 elfs strong. They had been the ones who had warned him of the approaching Goblin horde.

Apparently, they had been tracking some strange lizardmen. When the lizardmen joined the Goblin host, the Elfs scrambled for any help they could find. The nearest help was the Dwarf stronghold of Lumpyerhead.

Behind the Glade Guard he had placed his Warriors, a dozen of them all he could muster on such short notice. Pintwerp the Dragon Slayer had shown up and, as was his wont, went where he jolly well felt like. In this case, that was next to the warriors. Doltsneeze huffed in upset. He wanted Pintwerp to guard the mighty cannon in the center, but Pintwerp had a mind of his own.

To the left of the cannon Doltsneeze placed his Thunderers. Anyone coming towards the Dwarf army would face a lot of firepower. Doltsneeze looked on the horizon for the advent of the approaching Goblins. he was confident the Dwarfs would take them with ease.

His smile disappeared when he saw the size of his enemies. There were hundreds of them! They advanced towards him. Well, all except a group on the Goblin left flank that started fighting among themselves and went nowhere. A hail of arrows from goblin archers tore through the ranks of his Thunderers. Doltsneeze stopped smiling when he saw two of them playing pincushion for the Goblins. In response he signaled the Glade Guard and Warriors to advance.

Several of the small Lizard men fell to the accurate arrows of the Elf archers, but still their numbers were limitless.

The Goblin army continued to advance, firing as they came.

Doltsneeze saw several Elf deaths, but thought little of it. After all, they were only allies. It was the whereabouts of his Miner kin and Rangers he was worried about. He needed them to show up. He moved to the side, allowing the Elf Archers to deal with the Skinks while he prepared to take advantage of the King's Wall in case the approaching Spider Riders should charge. Suddenly he heard a mighty roar from the Goblin army. He turned to see a unit of Night Goblin Spearmen, inspired by the power of the Waaagh, charge into his Thunderers, chasing them from the field.

This was a disaster of epic proportions. Though his mighty cannon had fired thrice, killing a couple Spider Riders and 5 Night Goblins, he needed the Thunderers to do some damage, not flee in terror. Enraged, he led his Warriors in a furious charge against the Skinks. When they fled, his unit followed, hewing them to the ground to a man. Unfortunately, they bypassed the Goblin general, leaving him unmolested.

He found himself facing the strange lizardmen who called themselves Saurus. The Suarus proved unable to withstand the fury of Doltsneeze and his men and fled, only to be run down and slain.

At the same time, Pintwerp charged the Goblin General and began hewing away at him. For quite some time they danced their deadly duel of death, neither able to penetrate the other's defenses. And more Skinks suddenly arrived on the battlefield, coming in behind the Elf forces.

Fortunately, the Miners showed up as well. They had a chance at saving the cannon if they hurried.

Unfortunately, the Goblins killed the cannon crew and, even with the fearsome Miners behind them, refused to flee. Meanwhile, the goblin horde massed to take down the Thane and his Ranger force.

While they massed, the mighty Pintwerp finally took down the Goblin General. As it turned out, that was a bad move.

The Skniks, seeing a target, promptly slew him. Meanwhile, the Elves took out another force of Night Goblin Spearmen, the Miners took out their enemy Spearmen, and the Thane and his Rangers moved forward, ready to fight the Night Goblin Netters.

The Netters proved no match for the enraged Doltsneeze. He and his Rangers promptly got ready to engage the Night Goblin Archers.

The Archers soon fled. The Skinks shot down a couple of Miners, but the Miners had their vengeance by slaying the remaining Skinks. Then the Spider Riders over-ran the remaining Elves. Bothe armies turned to see who was left.

Of the once-mighty Goblin Horde, only a few Spider Riders remined. The Thane and his Rangers saw only three Miners besides themselves. The Spider Riders moved towards the Thane's unit but were no match and soon became mulch...plant food...extinct.

In the end, there were just a few survivors. The Thane, untouched. Seven Rangers. Three Miners. The rest were dead. But the Dwarfs are a hearty folk, unfazed by disasters and they will take the field again some day soon.

Rick and I were testing out a new scenario. The idea was to pit two armies that were as equal as possible, set up a battlefield with minimal features, and have a "Storm the Castle" win condition.

So we set forth two mighty armies heavy on squads and light on heroes.

We each formed our respective armies into two wings. We eschewed the standard Heroscape method and instead went one wing at a time, rolling for initiative each turn.

This sped the game up a great deal and made it possible to have 2000-ish point armies.

I won the first initiative. Charging forward, I began dealing death and destruction all around. Inspired by their general (and his extra attack die he gave them), the Roman Legions all but wiped out the Massachusetts line and his vikings. He found the shield wall difficult to penetrate. Things looked good for me.

Rick's hordes then swung into action, building a ferocious counterattack. He attacked my right wing with overwhelming force and began moving his knights in for the finishing blow.

His nefarious plan for tabletop domination was working beautifully.

However, I was not out of tricks yet. I moved my Gladiatrons over to the left flank to stall the Knights.

The Gladiatrons were unlikely to do any damage to him, but their ability to prevent models from moving through the spaces adjacent locked that side of the field down. That allowed me to concentrate my offensive power in the form of Ninjas and Samurai against him with multiple attacks per turn.

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Then my Roman Legions kicked into gear. They also did no damage, but they just wouldn't die. His winged wonders were proving just as tough.

With the Gladiatrons locking down the left wing, my ranged attacks became deadly as he lost model after model to the constant sniping from Sylvarris the Elf and Guilty McGreech.

Meanwhile, my right flank (his left) had become a quagmire; Major X7 locked him into place, but I could not get through his defense and he could not get through mine. We punched away in ultimate futility.

That was to my advantage because I was cleaning house on the remainder of the field. Outside of that quagmire, he had just two models left and they were not long for this world.

Once I cleared the left wing, I concentrated overwhelming firepower on my right and wiped him off the field, though he still had figures in the castle.

It was obvious I did not have enough left to attack the castle so we called it good.

The scenario is close to working. It needs just a little tweaking to make the castle assault workable. A hard-fought battle, lots of fun.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Just as in the first game, we rolled for teams; 2 lowest rolls would be Dwarfs, 3 High rolls would be Goblins. I rolled a 2 and was looking forward to another shot at using the Thunderers. Rick and Kevin also rolled 2s. But Phillip and Josh, seeing those super-high numbers knew it was not going to be worth rolling so they both threw down 1s. A more pathetic roll I hardly hope to ever see. Awesomely hilarious.

They set up first which was perfect. The cannon went in the middle of the field but way forward. I thought that was a tactical error. The field was small enough the cannon could reach the entire table. The center was correct but I believed it should have been set up as close to the table edge as possible.

We responded by putting out our 20 man Night Goblin Archer unit 20 wide to cover massive frontage. The plan was simple. Advance them 4" per turn, fire, and move everything else behind them. We knew the Archers would all die but by that time, we should be close enough to get our Night Goblin Spear men, Spider Riders, and Slugdrool the Troll into close combat at or near full strength.

Plus, by keeping our General in the center, all our tests would be on a Leadership of 8 instead of 5 (and 4 for Slugdrool).

They next placed a unit of Thunderers to their left (our right) of the Cannon. We placed Night Goblin Spearmen behind the Archer screen. Then they made what I felt would turn out to be another tactical error. They placed the Warriors way out on their Right Flank (our left).

I knew what he was trying to do, which he later confirmed, was to flank us. Unfortunately, he had not played the Dwarfs before and underestimated how bad the 2" less movement per turn would hurt.

We placed our second Night Goblin Spear men on our left flank behind the Archer screen. The only remaining choice was where to place the Night Goblin Spider Riders. My plan was to put them between the Night Goblin Spear men units. Again, however, deploying second helped us.

Josh pushed his Miners up to the front line for deployment. Good choice in some respects; it would let them get into hand-to-hand as quickly as possible. However, by putting them only 12" from where we could deploy, it gave me an opportunity.

I changed my plan and put my Spider Riders to the right of a building, out of sight of the Cannon and Thunderers, but looking straight at his Miners. If we got the first turn, I would charge immediately and be able to get my Spider Riders into combat on the first turn, uninjured. Full strength, the Spider Riders might do some damage even with their pathetic Weapon Skill.

We placed our General with the Spear men on the right wing, our Shaman with the left wing Spear men, and Slugdrool in between.

We won the roll for Initiative and elected to go first.GOBLIN TURN 1

I declared a charge with the Spider Riders. Our Archer screen advanced 4". Slugdrool passed his Stupidity test. Our army moved forward.The Archers unleashed their hail of arrows. Rick rolled as many 6s as I have ever seen and 3 Thunderers fell in a hail of Arrows. NazbadWartfinger attempted Fiery Blast but it fizzled. Meanwhile, the Spider Riders slew 2 Miners. The Miners were unable to do any damage to the Spider Riders and, surprisingly, decided they did not feel like fighting!

The Spider Riders chased them but had to stop when they ran into Dragon Slayer BorriGraniteskin.

DWARF TURN 1

The Miners would turn around on a 9 or less. Josh rolled a 10. That hurt them badly. 5 Miners coming into the battle with Norri and the Spider Riders would have insured a Dwarf win in maybe one more turn.

The cannon belched fire towards the Archers. However, he overshot and the cannon ball landed on the Night Goblin Spear men, then careened through 2 more ranks, killing all 3. The Thunderers unleashed a hail of lead and killed 2 more Archers. Our screen was falling fast.

Meanwhile, on the flank, Norri killed a Spider Rider while taking no wounds himself. However, the Riders won due to having him outnumbered and their Standard. But Norri is Unbreakable. No break test...this was not going to go well for the Goblins. We needed the Spider Riders to somehow do a wound or else keep Norri occupied.

GOBLIN TURN 2

The Archer screen moved forward another 4". The entire army moved forward behind them again as Slugdrool kept his focus. The archers fired again, this time turning their attention to the Cannon, having seen it's fearsome potential. 2 Cannoneers went down under the hail of arrows. The last cannoneer had seen enough. He suddenly remembered he had left a tall, frosty mug of ale at the inn last night and got a head start on getting back to it.

At this point we were ecstatic. The archers were expected to absorb casualties, not deal them. We planned to win in hand-to-hand combat and lose the shooting phase. However, so far the score was 3 Thunderers and the Cannon for us, 5 Archers for them. I will make that trade every time. The Goblins were winning the shooting fight numerically and impact wise. Hilarious. Not for the Dwarfs, I suppose...

Meanwhile, NazbadWartfinger got distracted by a wart on his finger and failed to deal any Fiery Blast goodness once again. Goblin sorcery; HA! Worthless.

In close combat, Norri again slew a Spider Rider while taking no wounds yet again lost the battle to their superior numbers and Standard. Being unbreakable, unhittable, and unwoundable by the Spider Riders, he laughed it off, took a big drink from his hip flask, and settled in to deal more damage when his own turn arrived.

DWARF TURN 2

The Warriors on the left Goblin flank reformed, getting ready to charge the Night Goblin Spear men flank in another turn or 2.

The Thunderers once more fired, having great success as 5 Archers switched to a lead diet. Lead diets are seldom healthy, and even more rarely healthy when they are at the hands of Thunderers. They passed their Break Test again, though. Sweet!

Norri noticed he was not making much progress against the Spider Riders so doubled his output, putting down 2 of them. Only 5 left. But they were doing a phenomenal job of keeping him from getting into combat with the Spear men, so it was all good.

GOBLIN TURN 3

On the left flank, the Spear men started to charge, but then noticed it was Dwarf Warriors they would be facing. They started an impromptu Karaoke whistling contest which caused their charge to peter out about half way home.

Somehow inspired by the whistling, Nazbad again tried the Fiery Blast. Miracle of miracles, he rolled a 9! The Dwarfs laughed. Picking up just 3 Dispel dice, they rolled them out. 6...1...wow! All they have to get on the third die is a 2 to dispel it. And....they failed. They rolled a 1. The spell worked. 4 Dwarfs took wounds...and then Josh rolled 3 fives to keep three alive. Only 1 Warrior died.

The Archers, inspired by seeing their Shaman actually do some damage, killed 2 more Thunderers. The Thunderers were going to run but they were too busy reloading their guns so they elected to shoot them one more time at least before following the Cannoneers example.

Norri, meanwhile, was still having fun so he killed 2 more Spider Riders who passed their test.

DWARF TURN 3

On the left flank the Dwarf Warriors charged into the Spear men.

The Thunderers thought since they were only hanging around to shoot their guns they should do some damage. Blood spurted in fountains as 3 archers fell victim.

The Warriors slew 4 Spear men, who could only kill 1 Warrior in return. Somehow, though, they passed their test.

Norri then noticed the Dwarfs could use his assistance in the battle, so he got to work and slew the 3 remaining Spider Riders in one go.

GOBLIN TURN 4

Big Boss DagskarEarscrapper noticed the Spear men he was with were planning to charge the Thunderers. He figured they could take out the 5 remaining Thunderers without his help, so headed over to offer his leadership against the Warriors who were crushing his left flank.

Meanwhile, Slugdrool the Troll found a few maggots in the Dwarf body he had been carrying around for a few weeks. He decided they would make an excellent snack so he wandered straight ahead munching on them instead of charging the Warriors flank.

The Archers elected to reform so they could charge the Warriors flank.

The Spear men charged the Thunderers. They could not slay a single one and one of their own died. Still, with rank bonus, they won the combat but the Thunderers had no intention of fleeing. They knew if they could hold on a turn or two, Norri would come in and save them.

The Warriors did not plan to wait. They killed several Night Goblins who could do no return casualties. One of the rearward Goblins who could count noticed the bodies piling up and began a rapid retrograde movement. Most armies call that a "retreat". The Warriors overran the retrograde, eliminating the unit.

Things looked bad for the Goblins. The Thunderers and Norri would no doubt make short work of the Spear men and the Archers would be no match for the Warriors. Only a huge smurf-slap by Slugdrool could sway things at this point.

DWARF TURN 4

The Warriors found themselves out of position so they reformed in preparation for charging the Archers. Norri moved towards the Thunderers.

The Thunderers then went to work...only to see 4 of their number fall to the Spear men while doing just two casualties in return. The Thunderer Champion looked around to rally his troops and noticed he was all of his troops. He elected to flee.

GOBLIN TURN 5

Slugdrool thought about charging the Warriors but decided to wait and see if they were going to wander off towards someone else, letting him attack them without danger to himself.

The Thunderer could prove a threat and Norri had their flank, so the Spear men decided to charge. The Archers unleashed a hail of Arrows at the Warriors. The Warriors laughed at the incoming flight. Unfortunately, that meant their mouths were open. Had they not been laughing, they would have lived, but the arrows took them in the throat and 3 Warriors shockingly died.

DWARF TURN 5

Angered by the carnage wrought by the Archers, the Warriors charged into them as Norri headed towards the Spear men. The Warriors were deadly, slaying 3 Goblins, but one of their own also died. With their rank bonus, the Goblins stood firm.

GOBLIN TURN 6

The Spear men reformed to face the inevitable Norri onslaught.

Slugdrool and Dagskar both elected to charge into the flanks of the deadly Dwarf Warriors. Seeing the massive Troll approaching their flank, the Warriors decided they had urgent business elsewhere and started heading towards it, only to see Slugdrool overtake them and hack them down without mercy...including Thane GodriThunderbrand.

DWARF TURN 6

Norri, the last remaining Dwarf on the field, charged into the Night Goblin Spear men. However, he had been tippling a bit too much. As a result, he rolled 3 1s in 4 dice, killing just 1.

GOBLIN TURN 7

Slugdrool and Dagskar charged in to attack Norri. Slugdrool wounded him. Roaring in anger and frustration, Norri slew another Night Goblin, but they responded by killing him.

Review

What a great battle! So many big events, big swings in momentum. The Miners leaving the field without doing any damage was a huge blow. Then, the Spider Riders kept Norri occupied for 3 full turns (5 combat sessions). Even though they did no damage, they kept him from running roughshod over the Spear men which allowed the Spear men to destroy the Thunderers before Norri could get to them.

Additionally, the Archers outperformed all expectations. If they had just survived 3 turns we would have been ecstatic as that would have let us get our Spear men into combat safely. Instead, they dealt massive amounts of death and destruction:

1) The Cannon

2) 5 Thunderers

3) 3 Warriors in shooting, 1 more in Hand to Hand!

Total: 12 Dwarfs which rendered the War Machine worthless after killing just 3 Night Goblins.

The Warriors were pretty devastating as well, though. Once they got into action they wiped out a 20 Goblin unit of Spear men and a Shaman, then got 3 of the Archers before running from Slugdrool.

And Norri was a maniac. He single-handed killed 10 Spider Riders, his presence occupied a unit of Spear men who desperately needed to be moving towards the Warriors, and only some poor rolling kept him from wiping out a unit of Spear men in the last turn.

After the second turn, things looked bleak for the Dwarfs. Their cannon was gone, their Thunderers were at half strength already, and the Miners were gone. They were in bad, bad trouble. However, things started to look up on turn three.

After the fourth turn, things looked great for the Dwarfs. The Archers were out of position and much weakened, the Warriors had just dispatched the Spear men, the Thunderers were holding strong, and Norri was about to make the fight between Thunderers and Night Goblin Spear men into a one-sided affair favoring the Dwarves. Slugdrool was wandering off the wrong direction, Nazbad was dead, and they were well set up.

In their 5th turn the Warriors would crash into the Archers and most likely destroy them in one turn. Norri would take 2 turns to get to the Thunderer battle, but they had survived the worst of it. So the Goblins had 2 turns left before being annihilated.

Unfortunately for the Dwarfs, the Goblins got a few good rolls in the 5th turn, first killing THREE Warriors in the shooting phase...in just 3 hits...and then the Archers not running when the Warriors charged. That extra turn let the Fear-causing Slugdrool to panic the Dwarfs. Had they not failed that test the Goblins probably run in turn 5 and the Dwarfs win.